Una waited for the first hint of predawn light, then slipped from bed. A chill skittered over her skin as she dressed. It would be several more minutes before Mrs. Buchanan turned on the gas and stoked the basement furnace. Una crept about in the cold darkness, smoothing her hair into a simple bun and pinning on her cap, careful not to awaken Dru.
Her nerves were raw with worry, and she hadn’t slept a wink. She counted out seven dollars from the thin stash of bills she kept in her trunk and shoved them into her pocket. Deidre would be expecting whiskey too and a refill of the near-empty laudanum bottle Una had slipped into her palm before the orderlies took her to her cell. One thing at a time, though. Hopefully the money would satisfy Deidre until Una had a chance to sneak into the drugs department and filch the rest.
With dawn about to break, she left the home and hurried across the street to the hospital. Instead of climbing the stairs to ward twelve, she slipped down to the basement. It was warmer here than outside, though she could still see her breath as it drifted upward into the air. The walls had the wet, greenish cast of a sewer grate and cockroaches skittered across the floor.
She passed through a long, open room where the poorest of the city could lodge for the night. Though many had already quit their beds—which were little more than wooden planks—and left to toil away the day begging at street corners or rummaging for rags, the stench of their sweat still hung heavy in the air. Una herself had spent a few nights in public lodging rooms such as these and shuddered to remember the desolation that seemed to bed down alongside her. The only place worse had been the workhouse on Blackwell’s Island.
No matter what, Una couldn’t go back there. But how long could she go on stealing from the hospital and not get caught? How long until Deidre grew dissatisfied and one bottle of laudanum became two or three or four? It would be easier to mix the laudanum or whiskey with arsenic and be done with it.
Una stopped and shook her head. What kind of vile thought was that? She might be many things, but murderess was not one of them. Somehow she’d have to find a way to meet Deidre’s demands. If she siphoned off an ounce or two of whiskey at a time, a drop of laudanum here and there, at month’s end she’d have enough, and no one would be the wiser. And there was always Edwin’s skeleton key if she came up short, though the idea of pinching it from his pocket made Una sick. She’d leave the stash for Deidre in a secret hidey-hole far away from Bellevue where no one, not even that nosey Nurse Hatfield, would ever see her.
None of that would change the fact that Una didn’t trust Deidre any more than a thief in a jewelry shop. Even if Una delivered the goods in full every month, she’d never know peace of mind again. Maybe she ought to cut her losses and run. There wasn’t much at the nurses’ home she could filch. Adornments of any kind—beads, feathers, ruffles—were forbidden on the wards. So most of the trainees had left their silks and bobbles at home. But Una could get enough to buy a train ticket out of New York. The idea made her stomach turn inside out. Good thing she’d skipped breakfast.
Beyond the lodging room was the alcoholics’ ward. It smelled less of sweat here and more of vomit. Cells lined either side of the hallway. Like the Insane Pavilion, each door was solid wood with a small peephole in the center. She peered into each cell as she passed. Most had only one occupant, though Una knew during a busy spell three, four, sometimes five women could be packed inside. Some of the women she saw were curled up on messy straw pallets sleeping. Others paced or sat with their knees drawn up to their chests, riding out the horrors.
Una thought of Conor’s harangue yesterday in the exam room. He wasn’t the only one who shared that scathing view. Yet it surprised her coming from a man of humble means, who’d doubtless known struggle. In these women, Una saw her father, broken by the war. She saw herself, cold and hungry, craving the fire a good pull of whiskey would light in her belly. She saw the countless women she knew in the slums who drank to numb the pain of their husbands’ fists.
She even felt a kernel of compassion for Deidre, who’d certainly known her share of trouble. But damned if Una was going to let her ruin this. She’d worked too hard to get where she was to give it all up now. She raised her chin and squared her shoulders as she approached the last cell. Yesterday,
Deidre had the upper hand. Today, it was Una’s turn. Rule number eight: Until the brass changes hands, it ain’t too late to renegotiate.
But when Una reached the last cell, the door was open. Inside, she found only a helper woman on her hands and knees washing the floor. Otherwise, the small room was empty. Had she passed by Deidre and not realized it? Una checked each of the cells again. Deidre wasn’t there.
Had she already been released? That seemed unlikely given the early hour. Then again, if Deidre could sweet-talk her way out of an arrest, she could certainly persuade the dull-witted night attendant that she was sober enough to be let go.
The heavy, icy sensation that had gripped her yesterday returned. She sucked in a deep breath to calm herself. Now was no time to lose her wits. But the dank, sour air did little to calm her. Would Deidre go to the wards looking for her? To the nurses’ home? Would she give up and go to the police? Wherever she was headed, Una had to find her first.
She whirled around and ran straight into Edwin.
“Ed—er . . . Dr. Westervelt,” she said, staggering back. “What are you doing here?”
He reached out to steady her. The touch of his hand, usually so welcome, made her all the more frantic, and she shrank away.
“I came to check on the patient we admitted yesterday,” he said. “But it’s scarcely dawn.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” He lowered his voice. “Had I known you’d be here, I
—”
“She’s not here. The patient. Must have sobered up and been released.” Una took a step back, glancing over her shoulder at the exit. She had to make sure Deidre wasn’t lurking around the grounds where someone might see her. “I . . . er . . . Have a good day, Doctor.”
Edwin grabbed her hand before she could turn and flee. “Meet me in the elevator later? Two o’clock.”
“I can’t. Not today. Maybe, um, next week.” She tried to slip her hand free from his, but he held on.
“Next week!” A clatter sounded from a nearby cell, and he lowered his voice again. “Una, what’s wrong? You’re not yourself this morning.”
Una opened up her mouth but didn’t know what to say. She hated lying to him. And she didn’t have time for long excuses. She had to find Deidre. “I’m fine. Really. Just . . . overly tired.”
“It’s all this sneaking around, isn’t it? I hate it too. Makes me feel no better than my father. I’ve half a mind to march up to Miss Perkins’s office, tell her I love you, and be done with it.”
Una’s racing thoughts lurched to a halt. “What did you say?”
Edwin looked down, the color deepening in his freshly shaven cheeks. When he met her gaze again, Una searched his eyes for any trace of insincerity. Words were easy, but it took skill to lie with your eyes. “I love you, Una Kelly,” he said. His eyes confirmed it.
Una stood dumbfounded a moment before pulling her hand away. Men had told her they loved her before, drunkenly, stupidly. One man had even put it into song. But their glassy, roving eyes hadn’t held an ounce of sincerity. This was something different, something terrifying.
The clamor of approaching footfalls saved her from having to speak. Reflexively, both she and Edwin took a step apart. A woman dressed in a plain cotton dress and apron, whom Una guessed to be the ward attendant, scuttled up to them.
“Beggin’ your pardon. Didn’t hear you two come in.” She swiped at the sleep crusted around her eyes and nodded to the last cell where the helper woman had just emerged with her wash bucket. “Sally there’s supposed to give a holler when any of youse come down. Guess she didn’t hear you neither.”
“We took care not to be too . . . er . . . loud,” Una said. “Lest we wake any of your patients still at rest.”
The attendant snorted. “These women could sleep through a parade. Until they start to dry out, that is. Then even a graveyard be too noisy for ’em.”
Una saw the washerwoman cross herself and hurry off down the hall. For a moment, standing alone with Edwin, she’d forgotten how dismal this part of the basement was. Now the cold, rank air was inescapable, pricking her skin and choking her lungs.
“There was a woman brought in by ambulance yesterday and transferred to your ward,” Edwin said. His posture had stiffened and eyes hardened. “Red hair. Short in stature. Inebriated, but not to the point of unconsciousness. I came to check on her condition but am told she’s gone. Was she released or sent to another ward?”
The attendant’s hands fluttered to her apron. “Neither, sir. The house doc didn’t tell you?”
“I’ve not been up to see him yet.”
“She died, sir.”
The words struck Una like a sudden lash of icy wind off the river. “Whatever was the cause?” Edwin said. “Aside from having
overimbibed, she hadn’t any signs of ill-health.” He turned to Una. “You made careful observation of her yesterday, Nurse Kelly. Did you note anything?”
But Una couldn’t answer. She only rattled her head and whispered, “Died? Are you sure?”
“Yes, miss. It was the laudanum.”
“I didn’t prescribe any laudanum,” Edwin said.
The attendant scurried to a desk at the end of the hall and returned with a small glass bottle. “Found her dead just after midnight. This was in her pocket, drained to the last drop.”
Una snatched the bottle from the woman’s hand. Laudanum, alcohol 47%, opium 60 gr. per ounce was written in red lettering on the label, followed by the words Bellevue Drug Department. But the bottle Una had stolen for her had been nearly empty. Deidre couldn’t have overdosed on such a small amount.
When she realized both Edwin and the attendant were looking at her, Una said, “She must have snatched this while I was attending another patient. Things were so chaotic in the exam room, I don’t even remember when she first arrived.”
“It’s certainly not your fault,” Edwin said, then to the attendant, “Don’t you search patients and inventory their belongings when they arrive?”
“Aye, we do, sir. But we didn’t find anything.”
“A bottle this small would be easy to hide,” Una said, handing it back to the attendant. “But I don’t see . . . How did you know she was dead? Wouldn’t she just appear to be sleeping?”
“Was her eyes, miss. Wide open and red as the devil’s. Gave me half a fright, it did. I rushed inside and saw she weren’t breathin’. That’s when I found the laudanum in her pocket.”
“But are you sure? Laudanum can slow a patient’s respirations. Their heart rate too.” Una’s voice grew thin and pitchy. “Perhaps she was sleeping and you mistook—”
“The house doc examined her himself and declared her dead.”
He could have been mistaken too, dragged from sleep in the middle of the night down to this dark, dingy, rat-hole of a ward. Maybe he’d pressed
his fingers against the wrong side of her wrist when feeling for a pulse. Or placed his stethoscope too high or low or wide on her chest. Either way, Una had to see for herself. “Where is she now?”
“The morgue.”
